Day 1

Project: Taming the Chaos 

Day 1 - August 12th 2014

I admit, I live in a house of complete chaos.  I have deep respect for those moms I have either seen or heard of that seem to have everything running smoothly with their clean homes, happy kids, and over all what appears to be a happy home life.  I on the other hand find that it is like I am fighting a losing battle with my kids and their dad to even have deer trails to walk around.  The most notable problems I have that instantly come to mind are:

• Laundry – I can NOT seem to catch up.  I swear, I get a full day of doing back-to-back loads and I still find just as much laundry around the apartment if I look.
• Dishes – Same problem as laundry… I do two+ loads a day and there are still random dishes that come out to say “Hello!  You missed me!”
• Clutter – Oh my goodness the clutter!  It and the laundry have taken over my home!  And it’s crazy because I’ll go through a area and throw out 2 or 3 trash bags worth of broken toys, papers, you name it and it looks like I didn’t do anything!

Now, I know most homes have a little of each that they are working with on a pretty regular basis, and I know my home could be worse… AND I know there is probably someone (if not many) reading this thinking “She’s a stay@home mom so why so much chaos?!  She MUST be one of those lazy…” Yeah, let me just say this isn’t the case.  Like I said, I feel like I am fighting a losing battle.  Let me start of with a little bit of history…

So, here goes…  I have 3 children. My oldest daughter, Christi, is 5 and just started kindergarten this year.  My son, Aydan, is 3 years old and is the second child. He is in his second year of preschool in a special program due to speech delay, behavior problems and possible learning disability. It feels like he is the equivalent to 3 children smacked into one little body!  And my last child (Hopefully for a long long time!) is my baby girl Katie who is turning 1 this Friday. 

The older two have developed some bad habits when it comes to chores and keeping their toys picked up…  I know its horrible to do the blame game, but it really is their dad’s fault…  This man enjoys sitting down doing nothing whenever he is home and leaves his stuff everywhere… dishes, laundry… always wherever… and I admit, we do not share a room.  He and Aydan share a room while the two girls share the other. 

Christi likes to empty her drawers while looking for one specific thing (which I was told is the norm by my mom) and I honestly think she does this because it looks like that’s all her dad does with his clothes too… He will leave his clothes on the bed and our son will then throw the clothes on the floor.  So, I honestly just shut his door and put in an air freshener… I really wish he’d clean up his room and KEEP it that way… but he is a big boy and should be able to do it himself without me doing it all for him… after all, I have enough on my plate without covering his room too… 

So, now my readers (if anyone even finds this blog!) know what I am dealing with!  I live in a house full of slobs!  Since 2008, their dad struggled with keeping employment.  The longest he had was a retail job for a year 2009-2010… then he had a 6 month temp job… then other than a few 2 or 3 month part time jobs, he had nothing…  SO whenever he was home, he would sit on his tush and do nothing but either watch TV or play video games…  Lucky him, I receive a HUGE amount of disability each month (I’m being sarcastic… I don’t even get enough to cover rent.)  Anyway, finances are beyond tight but are a little easier due to family help and him FINALLY holding a job now for… are you ready? SIX MONTHS!  I’m excited!  So, now he’s out of the home except for when he isn’t working… BUT it gives me more time sadly to actually catch up on stuff around here… BUT 90% of the time, that all gets erased if he watches the kids for a couple hours while I am either out or try to catch a little more sleep…  Yes, I am bitter about that fact. 

ANYWAY, this blog is now here for me to keep track of my goals and progress.  I hope this will help me and who knows… maybe someone out there will read this and be going through something similar and will view this as helpful!  I highly doubt it, but hey, we will see!